News

New study results justify continued funding for GI Bill: In the first six years after the rollout of the multibillion-dollar Post-9/11 GI Bill, more than half of the veterans using the education benefit completed their degrees. Through September 2015, about 453,000 degrees were earned. Student Veterans of America, a nonprofit coalition of veterans groups on college campuses, released new research to Congress last week tracking how the Post-9/11 GI Bill has been used. SVA leaders said they want to use the findings to eliminate issues for veterans seeking degrees and to justify to Congress the need for continued funding.

David Shulkin, Trump’s pick to head the VA, rejects radical change to fix agency: President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs is promising to meet veterans’ health care needs and says dismantling the beleaguered agency or making wide-scale firings isn’t the answer. During the campaign, Trump described the VA as “the most corrupt” and “probably the most incompetently run” of all federal agencies. But as nominee David Shulkin, the VA’s top health official, prepared for a Senate hearing Wednesday, the 57-year-old physician was suggesting more modest changes. He was expected to face tough questioning about any plans to work more closely with the private sector and about a persistent backlog in processing disability claims. Read more

VA hospital left deceased veteran in shower room for 9 hours, report finds: An internal report blames staffers at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Florida for leaving the body of a deceased veteran to decompose in a shower for nine hours and then trying to cover it up. The 24-page report concluded that hospice staffers at the Bay Pines VA hospital failed to provide appropriate post-mortem care to the veteran’s body, Fox 13 Tampa reports. The report found hospice staff put the veteran’s body in a hallway and left it there for an unspecified time, the station reported. Staff then put the veteran’s body in the shower room and did not “check on the status of the decedent…for over nine hours.” Read more

Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses a decade after going to war: Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war. Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back. Read more

Senate votes to scale back federal job preferences for veterans: Congress stepped this week into a sensitive issue that’s been quietly roiling the already-challenging hiring system for federal jobs: the Obama administration’s high-profile push to give preference to veterans. The Senate version of the vast military policy bill that now heads to conference with the House would knock out one of the advantages veterans enjoy when they apply for federal work. They would continue to get a leg up over non-veterans to get a foot in the door. But once they’re in government and want to be considered for another federal post, they would no longer go to the head of the hiring queue. Read more

Poll: Trump Leads Clinton Among Military and Veteran Voters: Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 19 points — 55 percent to 36 percent — among voters who are currently serving or have previously served in the U.S. military, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll. Read more

VA Awards $300 in SSVF Grants to Help End Veteran Homelessness: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today awarded approximately $300 million more in grants under the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program to help thousands of very low-income veteran families around the nation who are permanently housed or transitioning to permanent housing. The SSVF grant program provides access to crucial services to prevent homelessness for veterans and their families. Read more

Senate votes to scale back federal job preferences for veterans: Congress stepped this week into a sensitive issue that’s been quietly roiling the already-challenging hiring system for federal jobs: the Obama administration’s high-profile push to give preference to veterans. The Senate version of the vast military policy bill that now heads to conference with the House would knock out one of the advantages veterans enjoy when they apply for federal work. They would continue to get a leg up over non-veterans to get a foot in the door. But once they’re in government and want to be considered for another federal post, they would no longer go to the head of the hiring queue. Read more

Heritage of 1st black Marines honored at Montford Point Marine Memorial: JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (Tribune News Service) — A proud “oooh rah” reverberated throughout the ranks of some 45 original Montford Point Marines that gathered in honor of the first black Marines to serve in the United States during a time of intense racial segregation. Read more

N.J veterans seek medical marijuana for PTSD: Don Karpowich said he was determined to make lawmakers understand how deeply distressed many veterans are when he testified last month in favor of a New Jersey bill that would allow them to use medical marijuana for post-traumatic stress disorder. Read more

White House honors companies pledging to hire, train veterns: First lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden announced Thursday that more than 50 companies have pledged to hire and train veterans and military spouses in conjunction with their Joining Forces initiative to help support veterans and their families. Read more

Make sure veterans have care they need: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is again under fire for thedangerously long waiting listsfor appointments at the nation’s VA health care facilities, and for calculating those wait times in a way that masks the true extent of the problem. Read more

Post-9/11 vet unemployment again nears historic low in FebruaryThe unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans fell to a near-historic low in February, hitting 4.7 percent, government data show. That figure, down a full point from the January rate of 5.7 percent, matches the unemployment rate for the youngest generation of veterans charted in August, which was the all-time low at the time it came out. Since then, the October rate set a new all-time low, then the November rate beat October's number. Read more

Strong veteran employment rates continue into 2016: The strong veteran employment numbers charted throughout 2015 continued in the first month of the new year, government data indicate. The unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans was 5.7 percent in January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, equal to the previous month's rate and in line with the 5.8 percent average for all of 2015's unemployment reports. Read more

VA to request more money for $1.3-billion electronic benefits management system: The Department of Veterans Affairs was hit again Tuesday with concerns over the mismanagement and ballooning costs of its new paperless system for processing disability claims. Department officials told the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that it expects to request more money from Congress for its $1.3-billion electronic benefits management system, which has helped decrease a backlog of paper disability claims but also increased in cost by 122 percent since it was set up in 2009.

GI Bill overpayments leave veterans facing big debts: The Veterans Affairs Department is trying to recoup more than $200 million in overpayments that mistakenly went to veterans using GI Bill benefits to attend school, according to a government watchdog group. Read more...

Deploying more veterans on the business frontOn the battlefield, the military leaves no one behind. But back at home, many of our returning veterans are left without the support needed to transition successfully to civilian life. A recently released report, “The State of the American Veteran: The Orange County Veterans Study,” revealed that service members coming home to Orange County are significantly underprepared for civilian life. And topping the list of their greatest challenges is difficulty securing adequate employment at livable wages. Read more...

Senior VA executives abused positions for financial gain: A senior Department of Veterans Affairs manager who was supposed to clean up a beleaguered regional office abused her position for financial gain, part of a wider scheme to give stealth raises to executives, according to a VA Office of Inspector General report released Monday. Read more

The share of federal jobs going to veterans is at its highest level in five years, new data shows, with former service members comprising almost half of full-time hires in the last fiscal year. One in three people in government is now a veteran, proof that the White House’s six-year push to give those who served in the military a leg up in the long hiring queue for federal jobs is working. Read more

The 100,000 Jobs Mission announced today that its coalition companies have collectively hired 51,835 veterans through 2012. Launched in March 2011 by eleven major employers, the coalition of private sector companies is already more than half of the way to its goal of hiring at least 100,000 U.S. military veterans by 2020.